I Breathed a Song Into the Air
by inkedinserendipity
Summary: Ever since Uther ordered the charge on the Druid camp, forcing Morgana to return to Camelot and a life of suspicion and secrets, Merlin's been thinking. His magic should be used for good, right? How can he let Morgana suffer, thinking she's alone? Both Gaius and the tell him to say nothing. But he's Merlin, so of course, he's not going to listen. Part 1 of And Taking Names.
1. Chapter 1

The gate creaks open with a shudderingly loud sound as Merlin swings the wrought-iron outward. Sighing, he makes a mental note to oil the hinges as soon as possible - he really can't keep coming down here, making such a racket. Though, with his luck, eliminating one source of noise would upset some cosmic balance he has yet to learn about. Maybe, when he oils the hinges, the universe will decide he's got to make hysterical amounts of noise some _other_ way and send him tripping down the stairs, hitting his head on each step before falling to his doom in the river snaking miles below the castle. That would just be typical Merlin fortune, honestly.

Shaking his head at himself, Merlin flicks the torch in his hands idly as he descends the stairs, mind whirling. For no real reason, he finds himself counting the steps, taking them in sets of fours with a muted rhythm, far removed from his normal energetic demeanor. Instead of the rapid pace he usually sets, he walks with a dull, slow _one-two-three-four_ that echoes mournfully off the walls. Or maybe that's just his overactive imagination.

The walls of the cave are damp and slick his jacket with clogged moisture as Merlin leans against them, sliding to a seat. He places the torch in one of its two holders, magicking it away with a distracted flick of his hands. He leans his head back, baring his throat to the chilly air, and stares at the ceiling with blank eyes.

Air currents whip around him as the dragon arrives next to him. With a great flap of his wings that buffets Merlin's hair from his face, the dragon lands on his typical outcropping of rock, the closest he can come to Merlin without choking himself on his chain. Sometimes, the primal part of Merlin calls to him, urging him to free the dragon from his chains, until the other part of him - the one that puts Arthur above all else - protests with both reason and emotion. And, as always, Arthur must come first. One day, when magic is free in the kingdom, he will release the dragon; but until then, in this cave the dragon must stay.

"What brings you here today, young warlock?" the Great Dragon rumbles, his tone a remarkably human combination of exasperation and irritation, like a father expected to set the broken leg of a child's pet.

"Hello to you too," Merlin replies quietly, wishing he had a name with which to address the dragon. Even if their contact is limited to exchanges of advice and spells, he is curious. What could he call such a majestic (and ungodly irritating) creature? "I just wanted to think."

"I hear the library is a fine place to be pensive and moody," the dragon replies dryly, shuffling its wings around its body.

From Merlin's seat on the damp, uncomfortable floor, he rolls his head along the wall to look at the dragon. With a hint of mirth, he replies, "But the floor creaks too much under the sheer weight of its avid youth."

The dragon huffs out an amused breath. "I am inclined to believe that I would sooner perish than see any library crumble under the feet of youngsters in pursuit of knowledge, addlebrained as you all are."

Merlin inclines his head in the smallest of nods, making brief eye contact with the dragon before closing his eyes and tilting his head back toward the ceiling. Some distance from his shoulder, he can sense the dragon radiating curiosity at him. To be fair, normally Merlin has a motive for visiting. He's never quite found reason to pay a simple courtesy call before.

No better time than the present, as Gaius would say. Or at least, he'd say something like that. Gaius is full of these adages and sayings, most of which he uses to motivate Merlin to do his chores in a timely manner, instead of delaying a scrub of the leech tank for two weeks.

Merlin huffs a small sigh. He's not here to think about Gaius.

A couple of minutes trickle by, accumulating in drops of stale water at the back of Merlin's head and rolling down the fringes of his hair to drip sluggishly onto his shoulders. The quiet in this cavern is pervasive, immense; everywhere Merlin looks, even when he reaches out with his magic, there is little of interest save the dragon watching him from behind slitted eyelids. Merlin's pretty sure he's pretending to sleep.

Only this morning, he'd led Arthur and his men - however inadvertently - straight toward the Druid camp, after directing Morgana toward their care. And Arthur, in the typical Utherian fashion, strove to leave no survivors. In his head, Merlin can still hear the desperate wailing of orphans in the aftermath, the clinking of the charms set up above mounds of dirt to mark their final resting places. Whatever Gaius would say to console his apprentice, the deaths of the Druids rest solidly on Merlin's conscience.

Merlin shakes his head a second time, feeling a pinch of irritation at his own self-recrimination. He hadn't come down here to ponder the destruction he wrought, either. Rather, wherever he looks from behind closed eyelids, he can only see Morgana's face, aching and desperate to hear the word _magic_. To have someone else, _anyone_ else, acknowledge that she was suffering. To validate her concerns. To empathize with her.

Merlin is intimately familiar with that sort of isolation. In his youth Merlin could never understand why the birds liked him better than the rest of his playmates, why he never got sick from the running water in the rivers, why the flowers might spring up under his palm while chatting with Will beneath the shade of an oak, winding their stems around his finger. Back in Ealdor, when all he had was his mother, then Will, he could feel the scorn of his peers wherever he traveled, could not help but notice the muttered tension from the adults. He'd grown up alone, his mother's fear of discovery infecting his every waking hour, plagued with nightmares he could not fully understand. He'd had no one.

Actually, no, he couldn't empathize. Not really. He'd had support - Hunith and eventually Will. Morgana, however, had no one.

Sure, life for Merlin in Camelot was lonelier, without his mother and with his best friend dead. Sure, the stakes of hiding his magic had only grown tenfold, and of course protecting Arthur made it _that much_ harder to keep his gifts a secret. Sure, Morgana had to face none of that - no sleepless nights trying to divine a new spell to save Arthur from poisoning, no bargaining with dragons for ancient spells and mist-hidden islands. Sure, she just got nightmares.

But Merlin had Gaius, and Merlin knew what he was. He knew he was a warlock, and could take solace in the fact that, at the end of the day, he could talk to Gaius as a confidante and advisor and maybe, if he were to listen to the feelings at the core of his heart, as a father.

Morgana had none of his support. And considering everything - Uther's ruthlessness and Arthur's stubbornness, the glorification of the Purge and the executions every other week at dawn and cries of "sorcery!" and the guards and the books dedicated solely to the evils of magic - Merlin cannot help but conclude that, hard as it is to protect the most royal prat to ever grace Albion with his behind, it would be harder to live in Morgana's position, under constant fear of detection with the threat coming from the king himself. Uther acts as a father toward Morgana, Merlin knows, and he tries to imagine a life where Gaius would kill him without hesitation if Merlin revealed his true nature.

He can't. His heart clenches, painful and leaden in his chest, at the mere thought. He can't even bear the thought.

"What troubles you, young warlock?"

Merlin's eyes flick open, almost beyond his rational control. "Morgana," he replies simply, mind still alight. However he tries, he cannot banish the image of an imagined Gaius staring at him with hatred and fear.

"The witch?" the dragon hisses, dropping the pretense of sleep, as a shiver of anger like wind whipping sand off the shoreline thrills through the dragon's body, the emotion so ill-contained that Merlin can feel it, far from the dragon as he is. "Has she yet revealed her true nature?"

"I think I should tell her I have magic," Merlin says pensively, choosing to ignore the dragon's fiery words.

"What?"

"I think I should tell Morgana that I am a warlock," Merlin repeats calmly.

"The witch is to be your _doom_ , Merlin!" the dragon roars, and a spear of heated air blasts by Merlin's face, ruffling his hair. "Imagine the destruction she could cause with this knowledge. You cannot tear the threads of destiny so lightly!"

"Even so," Merlin says, unmoved. "I can't let someone - even someone who should be my enemy - suffer so greatly. Even _I_ can't imagine what it's like, living in fear as she does. Shouldn't I try to help her? Isn't that what magic is supposed to be for, to help people?"

"Should you do this, you will provide her with a weapon more powerful than any other at her disposal," the dragon growls, haunches high and wings alight, arched over his back. Merlin has no doubt that, were there no chain fastened around his neck, the dragon would crouch right in front of him, scalding his eyes with a furious breath to accompany each word he hisses. "She could turn you in, could attempt to kill you herself, could turn Arthur against you. Is this what you want?"

"No, but -"

"No. This is sheer foolishness, young warlock, however much your morals may tell you otherwise."

"Why?" he asks simply, finally turning to face the dragon.

"Why is this foolishness?" the dragon asks him incredulously.

Merlin nods.

"Because this will only hasten your downfall!" the dragon shouts, finally turning his head upward to loose a small stream of flame. So great is the dragon's agitation that, even from here, Merlin feels an ember loose from the fires and singe his hair. Merlin is suddenly grateful for the chilled moisture in the cavern. "Do you not want to live to realize your destiny? To help the Once and Future King?"

"Of course I want to help Arthur. But I can't let that blind me to other people." With every word he speaks, Merlin convinces himself a bit more, tastes a bit more of the truth. He has to do _something_ , though what that something is he's not sure yet. He can't let Morgana suffer in silence, watch her lose herself. "Arthur is so important to me, as a friend and as my destiny, make no mistake. But if my magic is to help people, then I should help more than just Arthur."

The dragon sobers, watching Merlin's face, and whatever he sees there increases the intensity in his voice manifold. "The witch cannot be trusted. Merlin, if you have ever valued your destiny - no, the destiny of the Prince - if you have ever valued Arthur's life, _do not do this_."

There's something akin to fear in the dragon's eyes. Merlin's not sure if that fear is for his wellbeing, or for the dragon's own sake. He's inclined to believe the latter, and that inclination tempts him to disregard the dragon's advice entirely.

But that would be foolish, to discard such counsel. Instead, Merlin leans his head once more against the wall. "Tell me more about my destiny, then."

The dragon sits back, surprised. His wings lower slightly. "I cannot."

"Why not?"

"To have such foreknowledge is dangerous," the dragon replies, then draws another breath, as if to say something more.

Merlin cracks open an eye, pulling himself around to study him. His facial expression is, yes, quite distinctly that of one warring with oneself over whether or not to continue speaking or shut up. Vaguely, Merlin wonders when he became adept at reading the facial expressions of a dragon. Maybe it's some inborn gift, he thinks wryly. Given everything else that he is, he wouldn't even be surprised. "Why not?" he prompts.

"Because to do so would alter your course of thinking," the dragon says slowly, tasting each word slowly as if searching for a better substitute even as he speaks. "You might attempt things that would otherwise seem folly."

"For example, to refuse to help a friend," Merlin points out evenly, shutting his eyes again.

The dragon snorts in obvious exasperation, fueled by impatience and rage, plus something encroaching on fear. "That is different!"

"I do not see how."

The dragon doesn't appear to have a response for that. "Merlin, _please_."

Merlin does not respond. Instead, he tilts his head back again, letting his eyes fall shut, and continues to think.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, he tracks down Gwen early. It's not hard - she's in the same spot practically every day before the rooster crows, heading up to Morgana's chambers with a load of brightly colored dresses folded neatly in her arms. Merlin trots down the corridor, hair dishevelled from waking up speedily, intent on intercepting her before she disappears into her Lady's chambers for most of the morning. After a good fifteen minutes of weaving in and out of other servants with a litany of muttered greetings and apologies trailing in his wake, he finally manages to catch up to her.

"Gwen!" he shouts unabashedly, waving his arms around a particularly inconveniently-placed column to get her attention. "Gwen! Over here!"

At the familiar voice, she turns her head, grinning ruefully at his undignified appearance. He has the sense to look at least a bit flushed - with his hair sticking up at all angles, a bit of dirt from his visit to the dragon trailing down his neck, hopping up and down in the castle before most of the noblemen were even awake. "Good morning," he says sheepishly, watching her amused eyebrow approach him.

"Good morning, Merlin," she replies, hiding a laugh in her greeting. "How are you today?"

"Pretty good," he says, pushing thoughts of Morgana's fear-filled eyes and projections of Gaius's face filled with rage and scorn forcefully from his mind. "Yeah. Good. Uh, d'you need help with those?" he asks, waving an arm vaguely at her basket.

Gwen looks at him askance, still biting down amusement. "Not really," she replies frankly, but hands him a load anyway. "But thank you, Merlin."

They set off side-by-side down the corridors of the castle, ducking with smooth motions under servants hefting heaping plates of food for their Lords and sidestepping the Head of the Armory carting an armful of burnished plates of armor and sword sheaths so tall it towers over the bulbous crown of his head. Merlin and Gwen have to walk for about five minutes before passing the purple-curtained windows that marked the corridor leading to Morgana's room.

As they pass beneath the lavender-tinged light of dawn filtering in, Gwen heaves a long-suffering sigh and pulls to a halt. Instantly, Merlin stops fidgeting, suddenly aware that he'd been tapping his fingers against the cloth loud enough to silence the roosters outside and deafen the birds in the sky. "Um..." he says uncomfortably.

"Um what?" she replies, laughter flickering in her gaze.

"You stopped," he points out.

"True," she concedes with a gracious nod. "But you haven't stopped your agitating since we started walking, Merlin."

"So?"

"So," she grins, with the air of an instructor teaching the alphabet to a particularly slow student. Merlin gets the distinct feeling he's being made fun of. "Something's bothering you. You offered to help me with the laundry."

"I just wanted to help."

"You hate doing laundry," Gwen reminds him easily. "Your stick arms are just too skinny to lug anything around for any extended period of time, Merlin, you'd do anything to get out of it."

"Hey!" Merlin yelps, thankful for the relative desertion of this particular corridor, save the sunlight coming in through the windows, merrily glinting off the floor as if to poke fun at him, too. "I'm plenty strong!"

"Of course," she nods placatingly. "Now, come on, what is it you've got on your mind?"

Merlin fidgets for several more moments under Gwen's perceptive stare, shifting his load from arm to arm. Finally, Gwen collects his load and stacks it back in her basket, waiting patiently for him to work up the courage to ask. "I need a meeting with Morgana," he says in a rush, looking at his boots. He _knows_ this looks immodest, but really, he has to speak with her. Even if some harm comes to his reputation.

"Merlin?" Gwen asks, expression flashing from confusion to alarm. She sets the basket down on the windowsill with a solid _thunk_. "Is everything all right?"

Trust Gwen to sidestep the obvious romantic explanation and go straight for the truth at the heart of the matter. "It's fine," he lies hurriedly. "I just need to speak with her. Could I take over serving her dinner tonight? You'll have to help Arthur, and I'm sorry about that, since he can be such an arse, but I wouldn't ask you unless it was really urgent -"

"Merlin," Gwen interrupts, stepping toward him. "I'll do it gladly. And I know you won't explain, so I won't even ask, but I just need to know - is anyone in danger? Is someone threatening Morgana?"

"Not everything I'm involved in is dangerous," Merlin protests weakly, trying to sidestep the question, but Gwen levels him with a thoroughly unimpressed glare until he relents. "It's...complicated," he hedges, before running a defeated hand through his hair, unable to meet her soft, concerned eyes. "She's in danger, yes, but it's not anything new. I mean, nothing that came up recently. She's been in danger for a while."

"Then why talk now?"

"I just thought...I should talk to her about it."

"What is it about?"

"I can't say, Gwen," he says reluctantly.

Gwen looks like she wants to say something more, but doesn't. A smile appears on her face, washing away the fear that had marred it mere seconds before, and she gracefully collects Morgana's laundry. "Then I am sure she is grateful to have a friend such as you," Gwen replies, jerking her head toward the door, so that when she steps out of the frame of the window he moves with her. "I will let her know of the change of assignments. Is there anything else you'd like me to say?"

"Uh," Merlin replies, rubbing a hand over his face as he thinks. There's nothing really he could preface this conversation with to make it any more believable. "No, I think I've got to say everything in person. Thanks though, Gwen."

"Not a problem," she replies sincerely, and shoots him one last anxious smile before disappearing through the doors to Morgana's chambers.


End file.
